Proposed Fortnite changes aim to group mouse-and-keyboard players together

Fornite dev Epic Games is toying with a matchmaking change that would group players according to their preferred peripheral for playing its cross-platform battle royale game.

According to a Reddit post from an Epic employee under the name JustMooney1, the team plans to announce more about the potential change next week but that the shift could either seek pit players using the same control scheme against one another, or just place mouse-and-keyboard players in a separate matchmaking queue.

"We're actually working on some matchmaking tech, on the way, that'll pair you against folks based on your choice of peripherals," reads the post. "More info on this coming next week, but tl;dr if you're on KB+M you'll be against KB+M."

Fortnite is somewhat unique in that combatants in its 100-player last-man-standing matches could be playing on any variety of supported platforms (though PlayStation 4 players notably can’t be paired with Switch or Xbox One players).

This means that, in any given match, adversaries could be using their iOS or Android devices’ touch input, a gamepad, or mouse and keyboard set up to play. Mouse and keyboard, for instance, often allows players more rapid precision when aiming, so much so that some mobile or console players will find ways to hook the traditionally PC-focused peripherals up to their devices.

In theory, to pull this matchmaking change off, Epic would need to successfully detect which control method players were using on any of Fortnite's many platforms in order to then group like-minded players together and eliminate any control-driven advantage.

Other Epic Games employees in the thread avoided diving into if the system would be able to successfully detect players using mouse and keyboard on mobile or console specifically, instead noting that the information coming next week should clear up most of those kinds of questions.